


Paint Me Love

by shiniestqueen (sparrowinsky)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-04
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-07-12 04:10:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7085092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparrowinsky/pseuds/shiniestqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whatever you write on your skin shows on your soulmate-- if you have one.</p><p>Sam writes. Nat draws.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paint Me Love

**Author's Note:**

> There's a post on tumblr about soulmarks in the form of drawings and such, and [miss_moonstone](http://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_moonstone/pseuds/miss_moonstone) texted me about it as Sam/Nat. And then I went YES and dumped a truckload of texts at her about it. This is mostly a transcribed, slightly expanded version of that.
> 
> Thank you Moon, sorry I stole your idea. :P

Natasha never writes, just draws. Sam writes (well) and doodles (poorly, but with joy. Nat always looks forward to the doodles.)

Sam starts first. Natasha doesn’t know what to write when the notes first appear. So she doesn’t, for ages, until he stops writing much. Then he wakes up one morning with flowers scrawled low across his belly.

He doesn’t notice them when he gets up. When he gets out of the shower. Still half-asleep when he stands in front of his mirror, drying his head, and the towel falls from his fingers as he stares. Rubs the marks gently, disbelieving, then starts grinning like a look when they don’t fade.

No color to them. Line art, a certain sketchiness to them that speaks of cheap pens, but they’re beautiful, so beautiful. Elegant. 

Natasha drew them in the night, in the last bed of a long dormitory. When she wakes, her flowers are colored in, purple and yellow spilling happily out of the lines. 

They trade every day, her lines and his words, colors back and forth. No names, of course, it’s  _ bad luck.  _ Sure, Sam rolled his eyes all the way through the last horror movie about two teenage idiots exchanging names and locations and dying on the way to meet each other. He doesn’t believe in it, never has, but the artist never offers their name and he won’t ask for what isn’t given. 

The sketches disappear quickly, he learns, and drops his next paycheck on a camera. Takes pictures of every single one. 

Once he caught it happening, awake late to study. Filmed it. Watches the video when he’s feeling sad, loving where she hesitates as much as the moments her lines are bold and sure. 

Sometimes the drawings are answers to his questions. She responds to  _ hey, ‘sup _ with elaborate sketches. His most poetic soliloquies usually earn a stick figure. Sometimes they’re just drawings, looping around his body. 

Once, in all the years, a word. He never stops writing, never stops asking questions, and only a few days ago he asked  _ how are you doing _ and finds  _ no _ tucked along his palm the next day.

He scrawls back so fast the pen digs into his skin, leaves raised marks that ache for days.  _ Are you hurt. Do you need help. Do you want me to come and get you I don’t care what they say I’ll come get you it’s going to be ok I love you. _

It just falls out, but he means it, in love with the ink she leaves on his skin. 

And she’s silent for a long time, and he’s about to give up hope, when she draws back. No elaborate sketch. A smiley-face, wobbly. A broken heart, taped back together with a band-aid. 

The stiff plastic chair beside Steve’s hospital bed leaves him aching and numb, but he keeps his ass in it. Doodles a little stick-figure on the back of his hand, and a note.

_ Sorry for the radio silence. Some crazy stuff going down. I’m ok, no worries. Met Captain America, so that’s pretty cool _ .

Tries not to remember that the last sketch came days before all the crazy. Tries not to read into that.

And Nat is coming down the hall with coffee, stops outside the room as she reads the words appearing on her hand. And her brain goes  _ click _ , a sudden sideways lurch from  _ Sam’s pretty cute _ to just, oh. Oh.

Walks into the rom. Hands Sam the coffee from her (blank) left hand. Steals his pen and perches in the window. Talks idly, noncommittally, drawing on her left hand. A sketch of Sam in his chair.

He’s distracted by the unusually quick response, watching it sketched with a sweet grin. Doesn’t realize until it’s clearly him, clearly this room. Almost can’t bring himself to look up. Meets her softly smiling gaze when he does.

“Hey,” she says, eyebrow arched. 

“Hey,” he says back. “Missed you.”

They’ve been together for three days, but he means it.

“Yeah,” she says, and draws a heart on her hand. 

Sam glances down at it, feels his grin grow so wide his jaw aches. Looks back up at her. “Yeah. Me too.”


End file.
